La Velle E. Neal III has covered baseball for the Star Tribune since 1998 (the post-Knoblauch era). Born and raised in Chicago, he grew up following the White Sox and hating the Cubs. He attended both the University of Illinois and Illinois-Chicago and began his baseball writing career at the Kansas City Star. He can be heard occasionally on KFAN radio, lending his great baseball mind to Paul Allen and other hosts. Mark Rosen borrows him occasionally for WCCO-TV.

Phil Miller covered three seasons of Twins baseball, but that was at a different ballpark for a different newspaper. Now Miller returns to the baseball beat after joining the Star Tribune as the Gopher football writer in 2010, and he won't miss the dingy dome for a minute. In addition to the Twins and Gophers, Miller covered the Utah Jazz and the NBA for six years at The Salt Lake Tribune.

Afternoon update: Twins claim Pedro Florimon

The Twins have just claimed shortstop Pedro Florimon from the Baltimore Orioles.

Florimon, who turns 25 on Saturday, made his major league debut this past season, going 1 for 8. He will go on the Twins[ 40-man roster, leaving them with 39 spots filled before Thursday's Rule 5 draft. He has a .247 batting average in 610 career minor league games.

He's a switch-hitter who, apparently, runs well but might struggle against breaking balls. Still trying to get more up to date info on him.

(For those of you counting bodies and getting worried about signing Michael Cuddyer or Jason Kubel or adding other players, teams can always outright someone to make room).

Also, I've heard that the Twins have shown some interest this offseason in Japanese lefthander Tsuyoshi Wada,.who was 33-13 over the past two seasons for the SoftBank Hawks. But it's not clear if they will follow up on that interest this week at the winter meetings.